School’s Charter Is Intact for Now

Orange Unified School District trustees have agreed to work with Santiago Charter School officials to better track and investigate complaints about staff members, thereby allowing the middle school to keep its charter for now.

The agreement, reached Tuesday, came after the district chastised school officials in January for not responding to complaints about a teacher later arrested on suspicion of having sex with two of her students.

School officials mounted a vigorous defense at a packed meeting Tuesday, accusing the district of acting “with great haste to compile a ... report that is loaded with factual inaccuracies, misstatements and glaring omissions.”

Santiago Principal Mary Henry suggested the school and the district move to prevent a repeat of the situation involving allegations against teacher Sarah Bench-Salorio, 28.

She has pleaded not guilty to the lewd-conduct charges against her.

Henry proposed teacher and staff training in sexual harassment and child abuse issues, and establishing a formal complaint procedure and investigation process for complaints about employees.

Responding to a district report in January critical of Santiago’s handling of warnings about Bench-Salorio, the school contended that the teacher led a “secret life” that had gone undetected by the teacher’s supervisors and by parents.

Bench-Salorio had received “a highly complimentary recommendation letter” from the principal at Panorama Elementary School, where she was a fifth-grade teacher before coming to Santiago in 2003, and had received high praise from parents there, the Santiago report said.

By many accounts, the report said, Bench-Salorio, who had been consistently positively evaluated by administrators and senior teachers at Santiago, “demonstrated characteristics of an energetic, bright and concerned young teacher.”

At the same time, Santiago officials complained, the district had withheld “critical information” about Bench-Salorio, such as her being fired as a library media technician at Olive Elementary School.

The report also said that the district had not provided documentation to substantiate warnings it said it made to the school about Bench-Salorio’s alleged previous behavior.

Rick Ledesma, an Orange Unified trustee, said the problem over how Santiago responded to complaints about the teacher was exacerbated by a lack of documentation.

As a result, he said, it was difficult to show what actions were taken by either the district or Santiago, and what each entity knew at any particular time.

“It was the type of thing where the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing,” Ledesma said.

Having three principals in the past few years compounded the problem, he said.

Orange Unified Supt. Robert French said his staff would respond to Santiago’s report in the next week or two.

In the meantime, a committee will report back to trustees by Feb. 24 with its recommendations for issues including better handling of complaints about school employees and clarifying the district’s and the school’s responsibilities to each other.

The committee, to include members of the school and district boards, will also discuss each side’s complaints.

The progress made this week “could possibly eliminate the need” for revoking Santiago’s charter, said school board President Kathy Moffat.

Santiago became a charter school in 1995, teaching about 1,100 students in seventh and eighth grades.

It has twice received the Distinguished School Award from the state Department of Education.